


If I Could Make Amends With All My Shadows

by iboughtyouchicken (haleingoutside)



Category: Nothing Much to Do
Genre: Clair de Lune, Claude Debussy - Freeform, Donalduke - Freeform, Electric Slide, I of the Storm, Irresistible, Lewis Watson, Marcia Griffiths, Of Monsters and Men, Teenagers, angst and sadness, fall out boy - Freeform, into the wild, my chemical romance - Freeform, nmtd - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-09
Updated: 2015-06-19
Packaged: 2018-04-03 15:34:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4106035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haleingoutside/pseuds/iboughtyouchicken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of Donalduke moments inspired by various songs. Hero and John become friends after all the older kids leave to do their various post-secondary school fun things. It will get angsty, don't you worry. Title is a lyric from "I of the Storm" by Of Monsters and Men.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. "The Electric Slide" by Marcia Griffiths

“I’m getting a truck sometime in the next few weeks,” John commented as he and Hero walked home from school in the blistering heat. February in Auckland seemed unusually brutal today.

“It’ll have air conditioning and everything,” John continued. Hero did her best to nod appreciatively while trying to avoid thinking about the heat. “I mean, it’ll be used, of course, but everything will work. Hopefully. And if it doesn’t, Dad wants to use it to teach me about mechanics and such.” John shifted his backpack no fewer than twenty times in the uncomfortable silence that followed. “Hero, are… are you okay?” he asked nervously after several moments of slightly heaving breathing and hiking along concrete.

“Oh, yes,” she said, blinking out of a half stupor. “Just been trying to think cold thoughts. Penguins. Snow. Polar bears.”

Chuckling a little (Hero never could get over how different he looked when smiling), John quipped, “Do arctic animals make you feel colder?” Hero laughed and playfully shoved his shoulder.

“That air-conditioned truck is sounding really good right now.”

“I’m working on it, I promise.”

They continued the rest of the walk to the Donaldson residence in silence. That afternoon in their history class, they had been assigned to work on a project together about colonialism and its different impacts on New Zealand and Australia. As they approached John’s front door, he regaled her with his impression of an Australian accent. Hero entered the home roaring with laughter to be greeted by Ann and a tray of cookies.

“Hi, Hero! So lovely to see you!” Ann said as she slipped the cookies onto a nearby table and hugged the petite girl. “John texted and said that you were coming over, so I made these, just thought you could use a little studying snack, and I know you bake often so you’ve probably had desserts which are much better and you could probably make a cake a million times tastier than these but I just hope you like them--”

“They’re lovely, Ms. Donaldson. Thank you very much,” Hero said sweetly, grabbing a cookie from the tray before heading into the living room. She and John set up camp on the couch, opening their laptops to dreadfully uninteresting tabs of endangered species and the aborigines.

After half an hour of brainstorming and planning a few things out, Hero popped up from the couch. “We need some music,” she announced, and the side of John’s mouth quirked up in a smirk but it turned into a smile as he nodded. Hero fiddled with the buttons and dials on an old radio in the corner until it came to life, playing some obscene song from the 80s. “That’s more like it!” she exclaimed.

John couldn’t help staring at her as she sat down and reopened her computer to continue working on the project. After a moment of the clicking noises of her keyboard falling into perfect rhythm with whatever girl band was still singing on, she noticed his slightly open mouth and completely unabashed stare. “What?” she asked.

“Sorry,” John said, shaking his head slightly and blinking, “It’s just… this isn’t really my type of music. I didn’t really think it was anybody’s type of music.”

“I have a very diverse taste.”

“Still, though. I didn’t really have you pinned as an 80s techno girl.”

“It’s fun!” Hero insisted, trying to defend herself. “It’s good for doing something dreadful because it lightens the mood.”

John laughed, and soon, she had to join in. “Working with me is that bad, is it?” he asked, and she couldn’t tell if it was sarcasm or not so she had to argue.

“That’s not what I meant,” she said seriously.

John smiled, just the corners of his mouth turning up ever so slightly. “I know.”

They would’ve gotten back to work if John wasn’t so busy teasing Hero about the rubbish coming out of the radio. The station was playing various songs from the 80s and 90s, with a particular emphasis on American pop bands. “Who even is this?” John asked when “Wannabe” came on.

“The Spice Girls!” Hero exclaimed. “Surely you’ve heard of them!” John grimaced in response. “What’s your music like, then?” Hero asked, turning the attention on him. “You can’t avoid everything fun and lighthearted, you know.”

“Oh, I know. I haven’t been able to avoid you all year.” Hero just raised an eyebrow at that, though she knew he was teasing and had to fight back a laugh. At her continued silence, he was forced to answer the question, “I like Fall Out Boy, Panic! at the Disco, but My Chemical Romance is my favorite.”

“Don’t they have that one song about, er, white parade?”

“Black,” John corrected, though he was impressed with her knowledge about what he considered bands for the dark and soulless like him.

“Ah,” she quipped, “should’ve known it’d be black if you like them.”

“That’s not even their best song though!”

But Hero was no longer listening to him, which was unusual, because she was normally a very dedicated and attentive listener. Her ears had perked up when the opening bars of a new song came from the radio in the corner, and she bounded over enthusiastically and turned the volume up to blaring.

She then began dancing around his living room.

When John looked at her like she had sprouted two heads, her jaw actually dropped. “Are you seriously telling me you’ve never heard the Electric Slide?”

“Er…”

“JONATHAN DONALDSON!” John, who had never heard Hero raise her voice, pressed himself against the couch with a sudden bout of intense fear. “Come here right now. You have to learn the Electric Slide!”

“Hero, we were working…” John countered, although the project wasn’t worrying him as much as the possibility of making a fool of himself.

“Every good team takes breaks. Ask… I dunno. The president of Google.”

“You do not know the president of Google.”

“Beside the point! John Donaldson, so help me I will get a crane in here to pick you up off that couch if you don’t come learn the Electric Slide.”

Hero was being a little more forceful than her usual self, but since John knew it was really all in kindness and fun (and maybe a little more of Bea rubbing off on her than she had realized), he sighed and complied. In a gesture of excitement, Hero clapped her hands together multiple times and squealed a little. She then proceeded guiding him through the steps of the Electric Slide.

Unfortunately, John was not exactly an expert when it came to coordination or rhythm. He didn’t understand anything by the time the final chorus had faded from the radio, so Hero turned the radio off and loaded an instructional YouTube video on her computer. The first video she found featured a low quality camera and a very, very loud girl in yoga pants (“IT’S IMPORTANT TO KNOW THE ELECTRIC SLIDE FOR SPECIAL EVENTS LIKE WEDDINGS”), so they spent at least ten minutes scrolling through the ample supply of Electric Slide instructors until they finally found a decent version.

It took longer than John would’ve liked to admit for him to finally get the basic motions down, though it looked a little awkward and unnatural. “It’s just because you’re tall!” Hero tried to sympathize. “It’s harder for tall people to dance, I think.”

John laughed at her continued sweetness. “It might just be me, Hero.”

“No, no, it’s really not! I’m sure you could really get it down with just a few more tri--” This was cut off by John picking up a cookie from the tray and shoving it into her mouth. As they both burst into laughter, Hero tried not to choke and John began his apology, though he barely got it out between laughs.

“I’m sorry… I was trying to… to politely tell you to… stop rambling… Because it’s not your… not your fault I can’t dance!”

Hero’s insistence that he could dance if he tried came out through her mouthful of cookie and bent-double laughter as, “Bbtchjacuddennsifyoodnied.” This mumbling, of course, caused a whole new round of laughter to break out. Ann came in a few moments later to make sure everyone was okay and nothing had been broken.

“What’s so funny?” she asked. “Did I burn the cookies and not notice?”

“No, Ann, they’re wonderful. Hero’s already had two.” When this made Hero crack up for the third time, Ann smiled, shook her head, and left the room. Hero and John let a comfortable silence settle between them for a few moments until John finally spoke, “Should we keep working?”

Hero nodded. John groaned in response. “Do we haaaaave to?” he whined, which made Hero giggle.

“We really should.”

“I’ve heard that laughing makes you live longer, did you know?”

It was completely off the topic of Australia’s original inhabitants, but Hero let it slide. It was still surprising and wonderful to see John interested in anything at all. “I think I have heard that, yeah.”

“Since the whole point of school is to get us a job so we can earn money so we can buy the things we need to live so we can live longer… wouldn’t you say laughing really is a productive means of education?”

“... No?” Hero laughed after her response, though, which made John point at her face and grin.

“See! Laughing good. Schoolwork bad.”

Hero was about to respond when Ann piped up from the kitchen, “Hero, sweetheart, would you like to stay for dinner?”

The project partners were astonished when they looked at the clock and it read 6:30. “Oh, no, thank you!” Hero replied to Anne. “I’ve really got to get home. Leo’ll be upset,” she said a bit frantically to John.

“Here, I’ll walk you,” he offered, grabbing their sunglasses from the sidetable next to the sofa. “I’ll be back soon!” he called out to Ann, who reminded him that dinner was very nearly ready and shouted something about how Hero really should just stay. John ignored her and guided Hero out the front door, back into the heat, though the sun going down had cooled the air a bit.

Their walk home was pleasant but uneventful as they promised to continue working on the project the following week. When they arrived at Hero’s driveway, Leo opened the front door and stood in the doorway with his arms crossed. John had a large internal debate about whether to walk Hero to the front door, which might make things look much more conspicuous than they were, or to walk away at the end of the driveway, which might make him look like a tool. Being a hurried decision, he ended up going with the one that kept him out of the house the longest and followed Hero to her front stoop.

“Sorry, Leo,” she murmured as she climbed the stairs. Leo said something unintelligible, probably about John and how Hero shouldn’t be associating with him, but Hero ignored her older brother and turned back to John. “I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah?”

“Yeah,” he responded before berating himself two seconds later for how stupid it sounded. The door shut before he had a chance to redeem himself, however, so he was left to walk home in the heat, replaying every bit of their conversation over and over.


	2. "Teenagers" by My Chemical Romance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A short, but angsty, moment at the Donaldson family dinner, immediately followed by a short, but angsty, moment with John and My Chemical Romance. This takes place immediately following Chapter 1.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because it had to get angsty at some point.

Of course, Ann asked about Hero almost the instant John sat down to the dinner table.

“So,” she said against the background noise of forks clinking against plates, “what sort of project are you and Hero working on?”

“Just history.” John’s usual dinner strategy was to keep as silent as possible. His father and Ann usually did their best to make sure that didn’t happen.

“You and Hero would know all about that, wouldn’t you?”

At first, John was so shocked that he thought he had misheard. But the gaping mouth on Ann’s face told him that his father had actually mumbled those very words through a mouthful of peas.

John dropped his fork onto his plate, sending part of his dinner flying across the table. “I’d be willing to bet we have less history than you and Mum, wouldn’t you say?” Though his father and Ann both started protesting at the same time, he refused to listen to them, stood up from the table, and left.

The lock on his door still hadn’t been reinstalled since the incident with Hero, and if that wasn’t enough reminder of what he had done, his father’s comment would be. He barricaded the door with a chair and his dresser. They always talked to him about letting go, his therapist always talked to him about letting go, even Hero insisted on him letting go. But the regret of what he had done would hang over him like a cloud forever, despite everyone else’s effort to prevent the rain.

He briefly thought about calling Hero, but didn’t want to bother her, especially not when his current emotional state was really his own fault. So instead, he drowned out his pain in the sound of My Chemical Romance screaming about teenagers, though he couldn’t relate to the way the song seemed to blame it on everyone else. After all, he had brought this on himself.

**Author's Note:**

> In case anyone hasn't read my other Donalduke fic "Asking Her to the Dance," there's a tiny nod to this chapter in there. :) Hope you enjoyed!
> 
> Love,  
> iboughtyouchicken


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